


Dead On His Feet

by themadmarchhare42



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Director of Communications is an exhausting job, Exhaustion, Gen, Malcolm refuses to look after himself, Nicola's a mother hen, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 22:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6397120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadmarchhare42/pseuds/themadmarchhare42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malcolm Tucker hasn't slept in days and is exhausted. Trust it to finally catch up on him now...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead On His Feet

Malcolm noticed that he wasn't feeling completely one hundred percent that morning when he entered DOSAC, not that he took any real notice of it. He had of course spent years used to sleepless nights, dragging himself through the streets of Westminster on only half an hours rest and a pint of orange juice, and his constant barraging of orangey vitamin C on his immune system helped keep any tribal illnesses at bay.

Today spelt the forth day he'd gone without any real sleep. Sure he'd napped for about an hour in the late evening, but was woken up again by an urgent call from Tom, needing his assistance with an urgent PR matter, where his previously trusted PA had managed to get drunk; which forced the tired spin doctor to haggle his way through favours to keep the brunt out of the press, and the nights before had been no easier.   
Today, he had a couple of meetings, several bollockings and this new DOSAC policy launch, and that was without any inforseen accidents, incidents and fuck-ups that were going to happen throughout the day.

His brain was at half-mast, but it was still whirring, almost on autopilot by now, as he scrolled through his blackberry and computer, answering emails and texts and sending the occasional civil servant scurrying with their tail between their legs.

At least he was in his office. It was the one place he actually felt relatively safe, the rest of the world always cutthroat and merciless. It was only really here and at his office at home where he could let his guard down even slightly. God he felt awful... Still he'd have to press on.

"Malcolm," Nicola suddenly appeared at the door "can I talk to you about this-"  
"For fucks sake, Nicola can't you see I'm busy?"  
"Just come and look at this, I think Ollie's fucked it up"  
Malcolm sighed but walker over "You let Christopher Robin write this? Christ you're in more trouble than you..." Malcolm drifted mid-insult, the room suddenly spinning.  
"Malcolm, are you feeling ok?"  
"I'm fine, Nicola!" He snapped "Which is more than you'll be if you fuck up this launch, like you did the last time..." He glowered at her murderously  
"Well that was a tactical fuck-up to stop the rumours of leadership spreading."  
"Sure it was, luv. Sure it was..." Malcolm waved her off, looking down at his blackberry where he saw five new texts had come through in the two minutes he had left it; however, he couldn't seem to focus on the words, the orange for urgent flag blurring with the black lines, and was that swirl an attachment or was he just imagining that?

Nicola had noticed the uncharacteristically distant look in his eyes, where they usually looked like they were about to shoot lasers at someone's head.  
"Malcolm, are you sure you're feeling ok?"  
Malcolm blinked sluggishly, his head still spinning. Suddenly, his feet weren't there anymore and he staggered backwards, arm flailing out behind him as he tried to latch onto his chair, but missed by a long shot and stumbled back, then the floor was gone. He collided against the wall back-first, sliding down it until he was on the floor, his back propped up against the cold brick.  
"Malcolm!?" Nicola exclaimed, rushing round the desk to see the Director of Communications looking confused, tired and in pain.  
"Wha...." Malcolm started, then hissed, feeling the back of his head and bringing his finger round. They had blood on them.  
"Oh god, Malcolm!" Nicola said, partially panicked, partially exhasperated.   
She stood up and grabbed a few tissues from the box on Malcolm's desk, then pulled his head slightly forwards to put one against the injury. Luckily it only seemed to be a graze, so only one or two should be enough to deal with it.  
"'et the fuck off..." Malcolm waved her off, not liking the unannounced physical contact. He hated being mollycoddled, especially by people like Nicola Murray.

This close to him, Nicola could really see the prominent dark patches under his eyes. As a politician herself, she knew a thing or two about late nights and the feeling of sleep-deprivation, the world spinning if you stood up too fast;   
everyone experienced that at some point and you just learnt to deal with it, but she'd never actually seen anyone so tired they completely lose their ability to stand up before. She knew it happened, obviously, but she'd never seen it herself.  
Go figure it'd be Malcolm, though. The man obviously ran himself ragged, never stopping, even on his supposed 'days off'.

Malcolm was still finding it difficult to focus, his own eyelids fighting against him as they tried to force themselves closed. These lights were too bright, it was hurting his eyes, making them want to retreat into his skull like snails into their shell.  
No, he needed to work. He needed to sort things out. This government could collapse any minute he looked away.

Nicola sighed as she saw Malcolm's legs pull up and try to gain some footing as their owner tried to begin to stand up.  
"No, Malcolm" she said, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. She felt like she was talking to one of her children, or a particularly grumpy dog "Stay there"  
"Meeting..."  
"You can't even string a sentence together, how the hell are you going to listen to anyone for more than a second?"  
The unfocused look gave her the answer before he even opened his mouth  
"When was the last time you actually slept?"  
"I had a nap...las' night"  
"A nap? For what, half an hour? When did you get more than three hours sleep?"  
Malcolm considered this, cursing his own brain's unusually sluggish response.  
"Uh...Tuesday."  
"Five days?"  
"Four..." Malcolm corrected her  
"That's still basically a week." Nicola snapped at him, feeling like she was talking to one of her kids. "Right, come on. You're getting some sleep."  
"Nicola..." Malcolm gave her a slightly wonky warning glare, but it lacked its usual threat "Can't just up and leave..."  
"Tom'll understand. Better a sleeping Communications Director missing one day than one dead-on-his-feet and making the wrong calls."  
Malcolm wanted to object, but she was right, and so stuck to a begrudging silence.

Luckily, No. 10 did have an emergency 'Rest Room' in case of emergencies like this, or if a member of the public caught up in a scandal, and unused to political working hours, wanted to crash.  
So after a few minutes of helping Malcolm stumble out of his office and down the corridor, Nicola watched as the usually demonic Malcolm Tucker practically crawled into the small made-up bed in the darkened office-sized room. She'd already got Malcolm's secretary to fetch Jamie, who would be a decent stand in for today, but with strict instructions not to wake Malcolm unless the building was on fire (which is probably what a more with-it Malcolm would have told her to say anyway.)  
Malcolm was dead to the world the moment his head hit the pillow, his face already starting to relax from all the tension. While it was kind of like watching a maneating tiger sleeping in front of her, Nicola did note that it was strangely endearing to see such a usually scary, strong force of nature completely spent and exhausted, peacefully and quietly sleeping, for probably the first time in over a week.  
She'd have to head back to DOSAC in a minute, and briefly considered taking a photo, but then thought better of it. Malcolm had spent years crafting a deadly reputation and showing Ollie something like this could topple at least a bit of that, and he'd track her down and stick her head on a spike for it.  
Taking one last look at the sleeping DoC for an internal memory to laugh about later, she quietly shut the door.


End file.
